I recently stumbled into someone that is a wealth of knowledge regarding AdSense and how to make it pay. I asked this “mystery mentor” to guest write a post here but he declined preferring to stay anonymous. However, he did encourage me to share what I had learned. I think you’ll agree that when you see these tips they are absolute quality and speak for themselves.

Why Adsense?

AdSense outperformed every affiliate program he tried.

Ad Placement

The heat-map (where visitors look more carefully) is like an F and placing the ads there will lead to a higher CTR.

For the top ad, use the google_ad_format “300×250″ and put it to the right of the left column navigation. Put a small paragraph of text above it so that the whole ad is wrapped in content. And make sure that ad is above the fold.

For the footer, use a horizontal text link ad, placed in the middle of the page like the bottom navigation many sites use. Use the 4 or 5 link unit that best fits the size. These give a lower CTR, but if you have tons of traffic, it is worth it.

Never use more than two ad blocks. The more have ads you have, the more room there is for cheap ads to appear.

Skyscraper ads do not perform as well as 300×250 ads but are a good substitute on pages where the 300×250 ads can’t be used.

Ad Design

Colors of the link of the ad should match the color of the navigation links.

Dim the URL in the ad (under the text) as much as possible so the visitor has a hard time reading it and typing it into another browser window. The color will be overruled if it is too close to the background color.

The ad text should match the page text color.

The background and border of the ad should be set to the same as the background, so they blend with the page colors.

Use an alternate color so you don’t display public service ads. PSAs do not pay but do hurt your stats.

Preventing “Ad Blindness”

You can use alternate colors for the links if it’s a forum, or a site that people come back often to prevent ad blindness. The format to rotate 3 colors randomly for the links is:

google_color_link = [”0000CC”,”800000″,”005500″];

This will rotate the colors in the bracket randomly.

Targeting Ads

To exclude menus and other noise and target the right ads you can qualify specific areas of content for Google to use in its matching criteria:

<!– google_ad_section_start –>
Content content content…
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

Google will still show other ads if the amount of text is not enough.

Make good use of <title> and <h1> tags to get better targeted ads.

Don’t forget to think about a product when writing a page - and mention it - so Google has some idea of which ads to place there. Good things to mention are books, software or equipment that could be useful to the user. Mentioning items in relation to the content will only help everyone.

Targeting an Audience

Think of what “Mr. Nobody” looks for, and you’ll get more money. SEO sites are the worse for AdSense, because SEO people don’t click ads. Amusement and games give very low money for the clicks.

Long-term Strategy

If every page you make raises just $.04 per day from the time the page ranks and you put up 5 pages per day you’ll raise your income $.20 per day. With 365 days in a year you’ll make $73.00 more per day!

One site may not make much money but several “not much” sites can equal a lot.

Defense

An update will not destroy several “not much” websites, but it may wipe out one mega-earner.

Big keywords hurt much more when you lose them. 100 pages bringing 10 visitors are better than 1 page that brings 1000.

You must have more than one site to make income online.

Working with Partners

Greed will make people make the wrong decision. Just remember, you can only trust yourself.

Link Building

Note: I asked about having ads on the site right away or if you should build some links first to get things rolling. Mystery Mentor suggested to place ads at launch.

I don’t swap links, so all my sites are just one-way natural links. I can’t say if having ads are slowing natural links because I always put the ads right from the start. I do get loads of them even if my pages have ads on them.

Design versus Content

I’m no designer and basically use the same template for all my sites. If the content is right, you’ll get links eventually.

Attitude

Think good… don’t be influenced by complaining people. Just do the work and be free in a few years.

Make a good helpful site: don’t pull tricks and you’ll get there.

The rest is a patience thing.

 

Posted in Website Designers, Business Owners, PPC

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“Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.”

Source: Google Webmaster Guidelines

Because your customers are likely to use certain keywords you should be sure to include them in your content. More important keywords should be in your headlines, title and even meta tags. Really important keywords should be in the anchor text of links pointing to your site.

But getting people to show up doesn’t mean a thing unless they convert.

Have you ever thought about why your customers use those keywords?

This is where SEO gets advanced and starts becoming “marketing”.

Take a look at your own logs and see what keywords have driven traffic to your site. Which keywords constantly perform as far as delivering traffic, but fail when it comes to conversions?

Most SEOs don’t think past getting the viewers to the site. Once the traffic is there they think their job is done. But if the viewers leave without doing anything the time and money used to claim the keyword is wasted. The same concept applies with pay-per-click advertising.
Going after keywords because they pull traffic isn’t a great strategy unless you have something waiting for the viewer’s arrival. Determining what should be waiting depends on what the viewer expects. Converting them depends on what they are after.

What is your customer’s motivation for searching for [your traffic building keyword]?

Figuring this out may be more art than science.

First, let’s look at the difference between short tail and long tail searches. Short tail search terms are usually one to three words long. Long tail searches are four words or more.

Short tail terms are generally pretty broad in application like [compact cars]. This usually means the viewer is looking for information on their path to making a decision. Short tail terms are the biggest traffic-builders but the worst conversion makers. The exception is when the viewer has made a decision and is searching for an actual product by name.

Long-tail terms indicate the viewer is educated. They know the concepts and are narrowing their search to their final decision. These people are ready to convert.

Next let’s look at the different users in the search engines. Google users tend to be more specific and are generally better educated especially for technology interests. MSN and Yahoo! cater to a younger crowd and more middle-class people. They also tend to be trendy where Google is steady.

Depending on where you get your traffic from your customer expectations can shift. Applying the differences in search engine audiences to PPC means your money is more likely better spent on long tail phrases and technical applications with Adsense. But in Yahoo! and MSN you are better off targeting short tail phrases. This should bring an improved ROI.

So now you know what the keywords are your viewers use and how they get to you and where they are at in the buying cycle. But you still need to define what they are trying to accomplish. Every viewer has a goal and each goal is usually part of a bigger project and each project is usually connected to some type of emotional situation.

People often say one thing and mean another. What’s the difference between the keywords used to find your site and the words needed to let them know they found what they are really looking for?
Let’s say the emotional situation is making a spouse happy with a present. You would never walk into a gift shop and ask the clerk for “gift ideas”. She would look at you like your brain fell out.

You would tell them something like, “My wife is upset and I don’t want to sleep on the couch. I need something that will calm her down so she will forgive me. She likes chocolate, flowers and small stuffed animals but I am looking for something unique.”

The emotional situation is an upset spouse. The goal here is not sleeping on the couch. The project is gaining forgiveness. The solution is a gift that may have chocolate, flowers or a small stuffed animal. It sounds like a gift basket may be just the thing. But how does your site get from [gift ideas] (short tail) to [gift basket with chocolate, flowers and a small stuffed animal] (long tail)?

Your site has to guide the viewer along and empathize with them! The words you use have to show that you understand their situation and that you can help. You need to guide the viewer from the short tail to the long so that they get the information they need to make an informed decision and can click “purchase” confident they made the right decision.

This isn’t easy. It often takes a lot of research. And most web sites (and keywords) appeal to more than one type of customer.

Your content has to be broad enough to apply to several types of customers without being so broad as to be useless and not so specific as to exclude part of your audience. Here are some tips:

• Start broad with a landing page that has the short tail term in the headline with links to more specific information.
• Ask the questions your viewer would ask. Then answer them. A good FAQ can help with this.
• Make sure the keywords you target are the keywords your customers would actually use. Our own article, How to choose keywords can help!
• Watch your logs for pages with high abandonment rates and adjust them until they work.
• Be complete but brief. Your customers have a limited attention span.
• Write with your customers in mind - nobody knows them better than you!

Posted in PPC, SEO, Marketing

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My buddy Ben aka Sktitzzo of SEO Refugee ran into a problem where Google banned his Adsense account. Ben was understandably upset and jumped through Google’s hoops to figure out what happened, how to solve it and get reinstated. The problem was Google just didn’t care.

Google sent an automated email that claimed there was click fraud on the account. At the end of the email was a link for an appeal. Ben clicked the link and made the appeal only to get another automated email stating there was definitely click fraud, that Google would be keeping any money earned on the account and that Ben was pretty much SOL. Repeated attempts to contact Google after this have failed.

As mentioned Ben is a friend of mine. I also know his father. They are both decent and honorable people and click fraud just isn’t in Ben’s character. So how did this happen?

Ben looked into it and he came up with Get ANY Adsense Account Banned. It is so ridiculously easy I can’t believe it hasn’t been a bigger issue up to now.

The problem with the Google Adsense program is that your publisher ID is public just sitting in the source code for anyone to pick up. Then they can use that ID on sites they control and do fraudulent things. Or if that is too much work, just use a proxy and continuously click the ads. Either way, the account gets banned and Google doesn’t offer any help or real recourse to get things straitened out.

Poor customer service is the culprit. Google has not been forthcoming about where or how the fraud occurred and this is not an isolated incident. Google’s policy of “guilty” without recourse is reprehensible. A little transparency would go a long way. At this point a little dialogue would go a long way!

Posted in PPC, Customer Service, SEO

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